The monthly club meeting for K9IU is Sunday evening at 7PM at the IMU ham shack, room 677. Free parking in town on Sundays, recommended parking is on Kirkwood or surface lots near the IMU. 73 and see you there. DE K9IU.

All, I just got a hold of a neat little gadget available on ebay for $114 shipped (from Hong Kong). It is a fully integrated MMDVM (multi-mode digital voice modem) on a board that interfaces with a Raspberry Pi Nano single-board computer. It comes in a tiny case with an OLED display screen, and a UHF ducky antenna.

This is commonly known as a Jumbo-spot and can be found in DIY format for around $45… (you add your own Pi Nano @ $15, an 8GB SD Card @ $9, and solder 2 headers and 1 antenna connector…and you can be on digital modes for $75 or so)

SO…what can you do with this dongle? Well..many digital repeaters are networked together….and connected to various “chat rooms” and “reflectors”. Thus, a virtual congregation of hams from all over the world meet up. However, some places may lack a repeater (or like many students, you’re limited to a simple D-Star, Fusion, or DMR handheld without the ability to install outdoor antennas to reach the regular repeater).

No problem — all you need is this dongle, a 5V wallwart, and a WIFI connection… oh, and your regular dstar or fusion or dmr radio. You configure the dongle to connect to the internet and connect you to those various reflectors/chat rooms of your choice using a user-interface known as Pi-Star.

The small hotspot dongle connects to your radio on your choice of VHF or UHF frequencies (simplex in most cases). Thus, the ‘last mile’ connection is from your HT / Radio to the dongle and is done with RF.

What results is an HT that is truly global-capable as long as the internet connection is available. Some guys are even using mobile WIFI/LTE hotspots to take their HT mobile while staying connected every step of the way through the D-Star, Fusion, or DMR network.

What’s more: a College hamradio chat room has been created on the DMR network – node 9500 – to allow college club stations to communicate with each other, to network, and to have fun.

Reminder the winter/spring School Club Roundup is on air and happening now !

Here is Trevor Cutshall, younger brother of club president Ryan Cutshall KD9DAB and one of our HS student field day ops for K9IU/K9SOU joint field day. Here, Trevor is operating out of K9SOU Bloomington South HS, likely piloting them to another SCR first place win! School Club Roundup is happening NOW ! Feb 12-16. Please get on the air and work the schools that are calling “CQ SCR”! If you’re a school club, be it university/college or high school/middle school/elementary school…by all means, GET ON THE AIR !!!!

A recent visit to Mike, WB0SND’s ham shack. This is half of the “boat anchors ” on this side of his ham shack. Just a few toys, eh? How about the AM transmitter – a bunch of 813 ‘s modulating some 4-400’s. This thing loafs along at the legal limit of 375W AM carrier. It will do double that (3KW effective DC output) without breaking a sweat.

I just want to know what brand of desk he is using. That’s some heavy metal ! Mike was a member of the University of Missouri, Rolla (W0EEE) club back in the day. He is active on most contests and uses the old gear often !

Wow. For $109 you can get on the air with 10-15 watts of RF, covering all ham bands. SSB? CW? Digital modes? No problem !! QRP? QRO? Also No Pproblem.

The opportunities are endless.

How about putting this in a box, along with a single board computer (pi, other) and a small LCD screen, antenna tuner, SWR meter, an LIFE4PO battery and have an all in one, battery operated fully digital HF station? I just ordered one of these — I prevously built the BitX40 and it worked great. Want to learn more?

K9IU President and IU Student Ryan Cutshall, KD9DAB mans the new Icom IC-7300 – radio was purchased through a generous ARRL Foundation Grant that was just approved ! Thanks Newington. We are contest ready and radio active !KB9YOJ discusses antenna theory with the club while waiting his chance to pilot the station during NAQP – SSB.

NQ9L and KC9YSG pose in front of the new ARRL-funded Icom IC-7300 ! Thank you ARRL. K9IU has been a continuous ARRL dues paying club since the early 1960’s. Thank you for reciprocating our decades of dues-paying loyalty with a generous Foundation Grant to help us fund some new equipment and keep students ON AIR !Behind Door number 3… actually, behind door #677 at the Indiana Memorial Union. The K9IU ham shack! What’s inside? Our HF station, a small server room and a hacker’s space for experimenting and building electronic / ham projects. It’s small but it works !